A Debasement of Language
by surjectivereject
Summary: When events don't quite go according to as remembered, a tokubetsu-jonin finds himself trying to make sense of events in a world that would make Orwell weep. SI-OC, AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Initially, I never planned on re-uploading this after I wrote myself into a dead end and lost motivation. However, things changed. **

Patriotism: the uptick of your lips as you slap the beginning of the sound into the air, the rough brush of breath as you exhale and continue, rounding the cavern of your mouth until you close it in a hiss. Five syllables in a language that doesn't even exist in this world. Yet, fatherland, _sukoku, _three syllables that do.

They made us study that poem once; "_Dulce et Decorum est" _their English teacher droned, stumbling roughshod over Latin words in class towards the homestretch as we yearned for deliverance. He moaned his ode to Owen slowly to the tick of the small white clock while his students lay their heads upon hard plastic and prayed to a god for mercy to fall upon their souls.

My pen, a good pen, one of those newly introduced one's from the capital, whistles as it spins on my finger. Sleek black with slim lines and a sharp sheen, almost like the fountain pen I once had when I was Irina. It pools ink-sometimes explodes-but for the most part, works. Except when it does explode; getting ink out of the flak jacket is a bitch and a half.

The now familiar spiky loops of '_Kikuchi Jin' _bleed onto pristine white paper. A consideration they do well to bear in mind is that all their miserable names be legible on the paperwork they give us. Today's chicken scratch is good enough.

_Dear Madame Saito, _I write and sets the pen back down again. It's time for another sip of that dark brew the straw haired chunin from five desks down makes, that black tea the department of definitely not propaganda provides. However, the letter must be written eventually, so with protest, I pick the pen back up again.

_We are sorry to inform you that your son, Shinji, has died._

Is '_died'_ the right word here? Mhm, _passed on_, _met his maker, one with the dirt_...

I cross it out. No good, that's too brutal from the first sentence. It's an art: you butter them up with meaningless fluff then drop the whammy. Wham, bam, thank-you Ma'am.

_Your son, Shinji Saito, was a good man and a dear friend to many. _It's a lie, a bald faced lie like all the others. We always say they were good men. It's easy when you keep the details vague. After all, 'good' has so many meanings: good swordsman, good illusionist, good liar. I suppose as a martyr for this village we all _loyally_ serve, he was good.

See, philosophy class was useful mom.

I had hated Shinji. Not because of his pretty girlfriend with the odd bruise or two on stray limbs that were 'accidents' or his loud unneeded remarks he deigned to grace upon us all. No, no, hate is something I don't give out so freely as that. Hate is a strong word, after all, best used sparingly. Mhm, I hated Shinji Saito maybe only partially because he was a piece of shit and a stain upon humanity as a whole.

Shinji Saito had deserved it when the Iwa ninja quite literally tore him limb to limb. I had turned away as he screamed for his mama. Well, kaa-san, same thing. It was a harsh grate from the back of the throat, spluttered out in a jagged wreckage of the original sound. It _was_ very unfortunate. I think Tomiko even shed a couple tears for him afterwards.

What a waste of water.

It's a fucking terrible use of time writing these letters. Half the people I write to are shinobi or were shinobi themselves and can recognize the sharp acrid glue of these envelopes or their distinct red-white border by sight or smell. They all know what these mean: one more name to carve onto that old rock.

_Shinji was always the life of the party_, true, _and could always raise the spirits of his comrades_, another lie. _I am sorry to write, _I am delighted to write actually, _that Shinji passed bravely in the line of duty to his village. He protected_, hah, we weren't protecting anything, _the village with his life and will be remembered as a great man for his sacrifice._

I use too much force on that last period and the pen splatters ink over the page. Fuck, I need another cup of tea. It's a good enough distraction to delay writing the letter for his mother. Rei had the good grace to die on that mission as well, leaving me the highest ranking member at tokubetsu-jonin and responsible for this sorry shitfest.

Kick the chair into solitary wooden cubicle, lock the room behind me with a light swipe of chakra, and walk down the hall to the main office room with the rows of diligent chunin hard at work. Now I feel bad, actually, not really. I'd done my time in that room as well before getting promoted and I can slack off now in the small closet I call my own.

Soon, I might actually get a window. Well, if medical leave takes even longer. I can't wait, just gotta hope someone with an actual room happens to get really unlucky and gets a tragic case of irritable bowels that cannot be stopped after a night of overindulgence through sketchy street meat. Real story, got old Kono in the end. He ended up retiring and Keisuke got his office when he left, lucky bastard.

A couple of them look up but it's only me. They droop their back down again in disappointment it's not their anointed "Nanami-chan" descending from the heavens of her desk, to grace the puny mortals with her divine presence. I think I can pull this maneuver off, but then someone's voice pipes out.

"Kikuchi-san!"

I keep on walking. Woah, what a nice floor. How shiny, maybe we should pay our janitors more, give them a raise for such a great wax job. Never seen anything better. 10 out of 10, best wax job I've ever seen.

"Kikuchi-san! Wait! _KIKUCHI-SAN!"_

Okay, keep walking. Left, left, left, right, left. Don't mind me, tinnitus from close-range ninjutsu battles without ear protection is a serious concern amongst our military ranks you know? Very debilitating, can't hear a thing now. I keep the 'no idea, move along' face fixed and after all those hours of practice in the mirror it's more than paid off. And just as victory appears within my sight the kid catches up.

"WAIT!"

Something-oh, a forearm-is clenched between my fingers. Like most forearms it's attached to a hand and an elbow although from how tightly I'm gripping this one, that might not be a permanent feature. Most admirable is the death grip he has on some papers in that hand. Papers aren't worth a hand, just ask Shinji. That's right, you can't. See, perfect example right there.

His most noticeable feature is the spiky ponytail resembling a tropical fruit. The scar across his nose bears no mentioning: facial scars are a dime a dozen. Other than that, he's pretty much replaceable with the rest of Konoha.

I raise one valiant eyebrow at him. "Yes?"

Despite his tan, his face flushes red. "The forms for-"

"Yes, yes, yes. That's all right? Good, have a nice day."

He's young, young enough that he probably never saw the war because he narrowly missed being born to one of the fast-tracked years in the Academy where replacements weren't coming out quick enough. Unfortunately, he's also green enough that he hasn't learnt to not give a fuck.

"Wait, Kikuchi-san, that's not it!"

It's hard to hold in the sigh. I have to remind myself to limit my dick moves to only ten a day. What a tragedy as I can't show the great quantity of fucks I give right now.

"Well, chunin..." I drawl, casting my eyes down at him, searching for a name.

"Umino, sir."

I've trained myself not to twitch or give it away anymore when they call me 'sir'. Especially when they're twenty years older than me as the title feels even more ridiculous.

"Chunin Umino, just give it to one of the secretaries in charge of document distribution and go back to work."

Because he's a newbie, he doesn't comment on why the fuck I'm out here and not working. I know the career-chunin who are either stuck or willingly placed here gossip like no tomorrow whenever our backs are turned but he's probably still working with a glorified image of us higher ranks in his mind. Bless his heart.

"This was supposed to be filled out two weeks ago, sir."

"That's very unfortunate kid."

He bristles at that, eyes narrowing at the slight.

"Sir, you-"

I'm not in the mood to argue anymore; I pull myself up, abusing what seems to be a four inch height difference over him and speak:

"Go."

It was cute a couple seconds ago, but I have a very carefully polite letter to write without backhandedly insulting the deceased even once. Just to emphasize the order, I release killing intent at him. Not much, it's a joke compared to actual combat but it does the job and he flees with the papers in hand.

Good. I give myself a pat on the back for a job well-done. One more day I had successfully avoided filling out that dratted form that awaits me through fucking Nanami's fucking proxies. It's fucking bullshit, all this unnecessary paperwork but that's Nanami "_Even the motherfucking backup needs a fucking backup"_ Hattori for you. It's literally just literature reviews, which is _fucking bullshit_ but apparently most ninja are borderline illilterate or that's what I'm gleaning from the implication of me being assigned here for my 'altered duties' while I await my clean bill of health.

Whistling, I unlock my door and return to the letter. Ah, off to a promising start. Maybe I'll even get this done today.

_Shinji Saito will always remain in our hearts and minds_, as a fool of a man, _who burns as bright as his Will of Fire_. It's the corniest thing ever, it's also fulfilling the checklist they give every sucker who makes a rank with "jonin" in it on letter writing to the bereaved. That reminds me...

Requisition notice, meeting reminder, daily public service announcement from that fucker Nanami, aha! My list, my chef d'oeuvre, my life's work, my greatest contribution to this godforsaken village.

_Burns as bright as his Will of Fire_ _= 'Couldn't be fucked to find a body'_.

There's a few more nuggets of wisdom within this sorry flammable sheet such as:

_Although gone, he will not be forgotten = 'The only thing they'll be getting is a name on the Memorial Stone'_

Or _Words cannot reflect the sentiments I have for your son/daughter's sacrifice = 'I am speechless with wonder that against all odds, they actually were useful for once'_.

The drawback of finally being free of people is that you can't insult them to their faces anymore. One, it's in incredibly bad taste to speak of the dead in such a manner, and two, I do have _some_ form of respect for my elders. Most importantly, it's just bad taste.

_Sincerely,_

_Jin Kikuchi, jonin of Konohagakure_

It looks good enough. I take out another piece of paper from the pile in the first drawer under my desk and begin transcribing onto there until it's satisfactory. Then it's easy to slip the letter into one of the special envelopes they give us for these and seal it shut. Now, I have another excuse to get out of my room.

Some jonin like to deliver the news themselves to the family. I don't; in my experience, it's the smallest things that'll throw your act off. Impersonal is the best way to go for me. Or else I start smiling and then things go _really_ downhill. I don't think I can ever go back to that seafood place ever again. Crouching behind the convenient potted plant outside of the common work room, I start spreading the thinnest wisps of chakra I can.

It's only a gentle slip of a soft veil of over the room of chunin. They don't notice, they're not supposed to. An innocuous area of effect genjutsu which gives them an extra boost of focus for their work. I'm helping them really.

Time for the second layer: _rat, boar, ox_. I haven't officially named it but I call it "pay no attention to that man behind the genjutsu". Names don't just fall off trees you know? It does exactly what the interim working name implies but it's a bitch to maintain.

I used to have to maintain each connection to the target separately. Now, it's just the careful process of starting it at one person then linking the group together. Kinda like seeding your torrents actually. Now that I've nudged them aside through an incredibly delicate yet chakra intensive genjutsu that has no practical combat effect, it's time for yet another one.

_Rat, boar, ram, rat, snake, rat._ Better than the twenty-two hand seals I had originally created it with but I still couldn't cut the triple rat seals out. All it does is just cancel out recognition. They'll see me, but they won't make the connection between tall, white hair, flak jacket, and tokubetsu-jonin Jin Kikuchi, a human being. This one was a fucking pain to figure out actually.

And finally, the most overt layer of concealment. All these buttery layers lain down with loving care, baked into my chef d'oeuvre. Visual is the most basic, the first and foremost thing everyone checks, but it's what we rely on the most. Just a wall, nothing more, nothing less. They don't even move their heads as I walk past, down the hall, into the anonymity of the staircase. Ducking behind a conveniently placed corner as a couple of chunin walk past, I am home free.

It's March, the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom over Konoha, and those with the spare time walk around in yukata munching on sticks of dango. A boy with the Inuzuka fangs on his cheek barrels around the corner, and I could just duck out of the way. That would be too easy on him. He collides into my open palm forehead first and body crumpling forwards.

Sudden laughter accompanies his sudden fall. It's from an older girl with the same brown hair and red triangles on her cheeks.

"Get up Kiba!" She yells, "We're going to be late!"

He scowls at her while he gets up from the ground.

"Be careful when you go around corners." It's good advice, honestly, maybe if he takes it to heart he won't meet the pointy end of a kunai while running around a corner at a young age. 'Tis a tragedy the other shinobi wouldn't tell you, yet happens anyway. Truly, knife safety is an area with a startling lack of coverage in the education of young ninja today. Something should be done! Petitions must be drawn, overbearing parents must be notified of the danger to the education of today's youth.

"Yeah, sure." The boy tosses out before scampering away. Ah, youth. What pearls I have offered, tossed aside for ephemeral pleasures of springtime. What folly, what hubris. Why, when he's a strapping shinobi of sixteen, tall and broad, he'll be a great specimen of his kind. Green vest on chest, he'll be celebrated as a strong and capable ninja. He'll go on important missions, save daimyos, rescue princesses, defy death at every turn until one day, he races around a corner and bam! Scissors to the chest.

Gets the best of us in the end.

And, as he lays dying in his last moments of consciousness, he'll reflect back on a conveniently streamlined version of his life, and think: _I should have listened to that jonin_.

Mhm, kids these days. No respect for their elders. Tsk, tsk.

Why, back in my day, when I was a mere sapling of a chakraless sack of flesh, well, we didn't have it so good as these kids! Why, that rapscallion! He'll never have to take middle school exams or university exams or calculus finals! The horror, what is this society going to? Ruins I tell you, ruins.

And so I walk forward on my lunch break to the renowned and revered Ichiraku Ramen. The noodles were good enough to make up for the chance of touching _PLOT_. _PLOT_ is a complete no-go zone, except when Ichiraku Ramen was concerned. But, it's not like that's an issue these days anyways. Because, sitting at one of the stools before the counter was one of my biggest headaches and concerns: one Minato Namikaze, or Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash, Yondaime Hokage, very alive and at large.

Four years post-giant orange fox demon chakra thing attack.

I fucking hate my life. And it isn't even my fault. I hadn't even done anything wrong, I'd stuck my head down like a good little genin, then got promoted to chunin mid-war, then did my job, stabbed the right people, and got the nifty tokubetsu-jonin title given to me when I showed that I could still read and write after all those knocks to the head. Then this fucker had the sheer indecency to stay alive and throw the timeline to the dogs. What an asshole.

Fuck, what can I say? I'm penning the letter right now, for the twenty first time:

_Dear timeline,_

_It's been an honour to remember you vaguely. Never have I cherished those worn, fading memories of reading black-and-white manga at one in the morning when I have a physics test the next day even more. But, as it seems, you're fucked._

_Sincerely, _

_Kikuchi Jin._

_PS: It was nice knowing you._

And then the nightmare of my future turns around.

"Jin-san! How are you?" He greets with that sunny smile, the one where it looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. See, the nightmare knows my name. This is how badly I've fucked up.

"Good Hokage-sama, how are you?" Smooth Jin, smooth. He can detect your fear, he feeds off it, thrives off it, don't show how terrified at everything he represents you are.

"I'm fine Jin-san, are you taking your lunch break?"

See, he _knows, he knows._ Don't let that golden hair, those cornflower eyes, and innocent smile fool you. He's onto me. I can feel it. He knows that this is an unauthorized lunch break, that I didn't bother signing out of the building at the front desk, and I am just fucking off from work. You see, Minato Namikaze is _smart_. He's a no-go zone just as a person and _I already fucked up so hard that I more than within touching distance of PLOT_.

I nod, then order my usual order: tantan-men. Konoha cuisine, given its location in northern-central Fire, is more like Japanese cuisine in that it isn't very spicy unlike most of the southern coast cities in the Land of Fire that love their chilies. God, I miss spicy curry, spicy hot pot, spicy stir fry, spicy skewers... Ichiraku's tantan-men doesn't even make me break a sweat, and that's even at their max spice.

The food just isn't spicy which is a crying shame seeing as I'm stuck here until I manage to successfully fake my death right around when Naruto's plot starts and run to the hills, living a peaceful life without the prospect of bullshit moon goddesses who exist just to end a story Kishimoto couldn't.

"How are your injuries healing?" He asks, making the usual polite smalltalk. The man asks me this every time I accidentally ran into him here.

"Good, the medics say I should be back on active duty in two weeks if it goes along schedule." My leg is already healed, given priority by the medic-nin since I need it to walk. My ribs and lung are what's dragging it along: since I can do my non-active job at a desk while slowly healing and not requiring medical ninjutsu, thus freeing up more medics to do important medic-y shit, I just have to suck it up. And I've sucked it up, for the past two months. But soon, soon, I will be freed of my papery shackles and emerge into a world of colour, a world, where I no longer have to watch kanji bleed into kanji and make franken-kanji as I fall asleep at my desk.

"I'm glad to hear that Kikuchi-san, I hope you heal soon. Thanks for the meal Teuchi-san." The man gives a friendly wave, then lifts the flap and well, _flashes_ (heh), away. To his office presumably, back to his paper shackles than keep him safe from poor tokubetsu-jonin named Kikuchi Jin.

Then out of the corner of my eye, minding my own business on the corner stool of Ichiraku Ramen with my bowl of tantan-men in front of me, I see an orange menace appear, in toddler form no less.

Fuck this fucking bullshit. I just wanted to skive off work.

Goddamnit Kishimoto, you had one job!


	2. Chapter 2

The worst part of the day is zipping on the ol' human suit and being forced to smile and make nice, without coffee. Maybe that's just the sleep deprivation, maybe it's the misanthropy. Who knows at this point. You'd think one lifetime of stress and insomnia would be enough. It does sting a little to open my dry eyes to the brightness of the morning sun, even more so when I step outside my room, with it's blinds and curtains all shut to ensure maximum darkness. More indication that indeed, the sun is a deadly laser and must be avoided at all costs.

"Morning," the retiree from next door says as I get out the door. I wish morning people were smote from this world. It's a Sunday, it's sunny, and it's a great day for a funeral for someone who is better for dead. A celebration of his demise, if you will.

I smile back, lips practiced at this gesture from years of being a minimum wage slave in college. "Good morning." I greet back, like the functioning human being I am.

The tension at my temples feels like someone is slamming a sledgehammer against them, but nonetheless, I am like plexiglass. Shatterproof. Just need some coffee.

Today is Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday. The cafe is open on Sunday. It feels as if in a blink, I am there: sitting at a table shielded from the morning sun.

"The regular?" The waitress (Ito? Eto?) asks more so out of courtesy than anything else, before I nod and she turns back. Today is busy, like most weekends. She comes back with my coffee and the ever-changing chiffon sandwich: today's is both fresh and jammed plum accompanied with whipped cream.

"Thank-you." I say to the angel of black ambrosia and sweet nectar, and she only smiles before turning to tend to the next flock of hungry faithful. What quaint loyalty she reaps; really, if you asked me to decide between killing a little girl or the waitress who brings me coffee every Sunday morning, well, it's obvious who I would choose.

In truth I don't feel particularly hungry or in an eating mood; the nausea building up inside my centre of mass only lets me sip my coffee. What did I have for dinner last night? Mackerel? No, wasn't that last week? Ichiraku? No that was lunch five days ago, I think.

Of course, Kaori would somehow turn this around and make this about me and how I really need to actually go to therapy, trying to replace the empty position of 'mother-figure' in her own burgeoning motherhood. My sister may think she has my best interests in mind, but I digress. My mind is my own and I would rather not let the long-fingered grip of the super-secret Yamanaka conspiracy takehold there like they have in so many other departments. It's all part of their long-term, generation spanning plot to gain military control of Fire and secretly rule through blackmail and smiling blonde therapists who know all the dusty skeletons in your long-forgotten closets.

"Sorry, is anyone sitting here?" A woman asks with that typical polite insincerity, ruining my perfectly nice lonesome Sunday morning with my coffee and my sudoku.

A glance around me reveals that the cafe has slowly filled itself up during my preoccupation with my half-finished sudoku and there's no polite way to say 'No'. She looks half-familiar: black hair like every third person in Konoha, pale skin, and red eyes. Not the sharingan, but memorable enough.

I nod and keep my head down, eyes focused on my newspaper. Table sharing may mean I have to cede my physical space, but actually making small-talk is a punishment I will try to dodge to my best ability. Almost enough to make me wish I had gone to one of the stuffier, dimmer restaurants with private dividers. Except, I was off the active-duty rolster and consequently, my pay also suffered.

"Excuse me, I've never been here before, but how is the chiffon cake?" She asks from across me, cleary not understanding the concept of '_Leave me the fuck alone'. _I pretend I don't hear her, too engrossed in my wonderful sudoku to care.

"Eight, five, nine." I mutter aloud, "Seven, six, two, four." Well, good to know it's either three or one in that square.

She tries again, clearing her throat and raising her volume higher. "Pardon me, is the cake here good?"

At this point I only have a handful of options left: feign deafness (tragic, this is why ear protection is so important in ninjutsu battles, really), pretend I hadn't heard her before and give a polite response, or keep ignoring her.

To my own surprise, I didn't choose the last one. I amaze myself sometimes with my own ineptitude.

"Yes." I grunt, before turning my gaze back down. Sudokus, much more diverting than say, paperwork. Particularly the pile upon my desk still waiting upon my return.

It's the most annoying thing about small towns: the people. And how annoyingly social they are. For perhaps, a rural nobody, Konoha would be considered large. At a population of [redacted] people and [highlighted with Sharpie] active personnel, it would be considered a large city in the Land of Fire. It's still nothing compared to Seattle or Memphis, nevermind Los Angeles, Tokyo, or Shanghai. Yet, perhaps because of its military inhabitants, it has all the annoying hallmarks of small-town culture: nosiness, gossip, and an inability to understand why smalltalk isn't necessary.

"Do you work in Intel? You seem familiar."

Ah, do I have to say where I work? Must she really bring work into my day off? Of course she must. Clearly she can't just leave work at the office or in the field. Tsk, tsk.

"Propaganda."

She tilts her head a little, mouth drawn tight as though she's trying to wring a conclusion out from the line of her lips.

"Public communication and information." I clarify, giving her the much wordier actual title of my hopefully soon to be former department.

Perhaps a spark dies in her eyes once she realizes I am merely some desk-jockey and not a fellow intrepid field shinobi like her, a cubicle slave doomed to expire before a monochrome pile of papers in forty, fifty, or even sixty years time. Or maybe that's just me imagining things.

"Have a good day," I tell her, leaving a third of my cake on the with her while giving her my best minimum wage smile, "Take care." I flee to the only exit in sight I can see: paying my bill. What a pity! What a waste! I hadn't even finished the pitcher of coffee. And I was out of coffee myself.

_Goddamnit._

* * *

Blink, and I am at a funeral. My eyes are open, the dryness of the air against my eye a reminder of reality as I stare at the woman who stands resolute before the dirt of the grave. The sun shines down on us. Blink again, I am nowhere, I am dead. Blink, blink, blink. The tiny plops of eyelid against eyelid. Bright light flaring out of the darkness only to be momentarily snuffed again.

Some part of us must be wired to have an almost supernatural affinity for queues. It is the only explanation as I am caught in the snaking line of people waiting to give Madame Saito, whose letter I wrote just a week ago beforehand, their condolences. We coil around her, one long black python, mouth open, ready to bite.

"I am so sorry." They all whisper to her. Then, they wrap an arm around one of her shoulders: physical comfort without too many presumptions of familiarity.

"We're so sorry." The couple in front of me says, before they too, in turn walk past her.

"I am so sorry." I tell her as I wrap my arms over one trembling shoulder and under another. _One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi_, then I release. Beneath the lined skin and poorly concealed grief is a mother's rage against the world. I can see it in her eyes for me now: rage that I am alive. If I were a better person, I would be too.

I step back from the bereaved and walk onwards to the gates. My duty here is done. There is a line to how fast you can flee from the scene of the deceased. Too fast, it's obvious. Too slow, someone might think you actually care and ask pesky questions.

Blink, and I am out of the cemetery grounds. It's only a formality for the ceremony. With another blink of my eyes, I am home.

My sister in this life, Kaori, she called my bachelor pad of an apartment "bare". It's a kind word for it. One bed, one bath, one living room/dining area, one kitchen, no balcony. There's a window, only one. No plants, no pets, but the bare necessities: a bed, a table, exactly three chairs, one desk, and a bookshelf. The light blue quilt on the back of the chair, that's Kaori's, forgotten here after the first and only housewarming party I'll ever host.

Kaori always hosts dinners at her place for a reason.

I sit down at my desk. Regret immediately rises when all I see are the scattered papers I left there this morning. Forms, forms, forms, a journal article-

-Ah, what do we have here? Let's see, please be better than requisition form 4356. Not that it's hard to be.

It's a review of _Up and Down the Centuries: the Kingdom of Fire_, published in the _Fire Country Journal of Historical Studies_. Criticism of an established work of propaganda that details the divine right of the rulers of Fire? It's a bold move Cotton, let's see if it pays off. Then I read who it's by: _Itagaki Seiji_

The name is familiar, I think I've heard it somewhere. _Itagaki, Itagaki_, that's not a last name you see everyday day. Whoever it is, I hope I don't have to make a housecall very soon. I hate making housecalls.

It isn't too far into the article that I hit the first red flag: a reference to Ueki Suga, famed female poet, writer, former Fire country nobility and political exile who resided in the court of the Earth daimyo a century before. _Ueki's accounts of the formation of Konohagakure_, Itagaki writes, _differ and provide a more detailed account of the circumstances surrounding the daimyo's decision to create a centralized military power._ He's correct: Ueki's accounts really do provide detail that _Up and Down the Centuries: the Kingdom of Fire_ does not. Detail that isn't necessarily flattering and best not brought up in public for all to read.

Someone before me has already drawn arrows around another concerning passage. _There's no suggestion of Konohagakure's creation in what many consider to be the monk and historian Doin's greatest work. "In the twenty-first year of the Myoge era..." he writes, yet there is a conspicuous hole of information surrounding the shinobi who have created the first of its kind. _Of course he wouldn't write about, he wouldn't dare. The head of the fire temple had been assassinated five years prior, to this day no one knows who, but given the odds, it was a ninja. When the fire daimyo himself is backing the ninja, of course Doin would put his life first before his work.

And the rest is history. _Up and Down the Centuries: the Kingdom of Fire_ becomes a hit success, a book every Academy graduate has at least chapters of, and Doin keeps his head. Win, win.

_Itagaki_... It's so familiar, the tip of my tongue and the skin of my teeth. The whirl of thought flies blatantly in my face, dangling tauntingly away yet so close I can almost grasp it.

Ah, Tatsuo, Tatsuo Morito. We had met, Itagaki and I then. My last foray into the court of Fire and its snakepit of academia at the Royal University of Saimei. Before Morito's untimely death by moonlight boating accident. Very unfortunate, what a tragedy.

His widow was desolate and turned to paranoia in her final years before being committed to an asylum. The best asylum in the nation.

What a tragedy.

Itagaki had been close to Morito, one of his gaggle of academics raised in lieu of children. No surprise then that the hawk will return to snatch another chick before it's time. So many blatant references and critiques of the current history department at the Land of Fire's premiere institution of knowledge, Itagaki knew exactly what he was doing.

Then it is fitting he knows how this ends.

Quietly, it is always quiet. Quiet and quick on the draw, although the scheming may be slower. Sometimes it is a gentle touch: soft rasps of skin against skin and the slow, drawn out moan. Sometimes it is just the sharp kiss of a blade. Suicides, accidents, auto-erotic asphyxiation: we do it all.

I guess someone has to. Or maybe we don't. Then we get hammered down because someone else has to.

There's a system to all of this. Red ink, green ink, blue ink; squiggly, circle, underline, and star. By the time I am finished, I have signed Itagaki's death warrant in red circles and stars. It's a very avant garde death warrant, almost quite pretty if you squint and tilt your head a couple degrees down and to the left. I almost like it myself.

With the clack of the switch I turn the lamp off and in the darkness of the room, I blink, and I am asleep.

* * *

In a fit of madness, I decided I had my fill of paperwork and desks, and decided to go through the long and arduous process of obtaining a mission: therefore, to the hospital I must go. Ah, Konoha Hospital, lair of the evil medics and spiteful nurses. Needles, and forms, and nudity, oh my.

I regret going for my final check up at this time when Sukui shows up and drags me off to her lair. Some people really never manage to grow past a certain stage, really. Like clinging to genin teammates, even when you're a chunin with your own coworkers and social circle that you should really go annoy instead.

"What are you thinking? Your injury needs at least another week of observation before you can go off and come back even more injured? What next, a pneumothorax? And _you still have a psych evaluation you need to do!_ Doctor Yamanaka told me she can make room for you on the 29th, so _be here _at-"

A knock at the door interrupts her usual lecture: being irresponsible, having a death wish, forging a medical note saying I was completely healed, going on a mission that lead to poor Shinji-chan dying while still being injured, having a death wish, typical Sukui-sensei stuff. What a bleeding heart.

"Kikuchi-san?" The genin asks, eyes going from side to side as he nervously watches the Sukui's reddening face. Ah, yes, great. Finally, an interruption to Sukui's tirade and not one from me either. He looks young, freshly graduated from the Academy young, with a shiny new forehead protector tied in the proper place, navy blue cloth still one uniform shade and texture.

"Yes?" Well, that came out harsher than intended. No matter then, it's just a genin.

"Your sister, Kaori Kikuchi, is having her baby right now sir. She wants you to be there and to pick up her son. You nephew's in waiting room two."

"Well then," I say with the straightest face I have mastered, "I see I'm needed elsewhere. Enjoy your day Sukui-sensei!" And then proceed to give the biggest shit-eating smile I can to her when the genin has turned away to leave. Ouch, I don't think my facial muscles were meant to stretch that far.

"_Jin, this isn't over you-_"

I close the door and leisurely walk my way down to the waiting room. Two was it? Sounds about right.

It isn't hard to find Sozen.

Surprisingly, he looks like me. White hair that needs a haircut because it's falling into his eyes, almond shaped green eyes, not too pale or too tan skin. The whole family-Kaori, Kasumi, grandmother, and me-had joked that he was actually my child instead of Kaori's when he was still a newborn. Especially since Kaori had a different colouring to mine: round grey eyes, wavy apricot hair, and almost ghost-like skin. The same as our mother and Kasumi, our older sister.

He has Kaori's nose, more rounded and slightly tilted upward which makes him look cuter than the average eight year old. Which, in my completely unbiased opinion, he is. Sozen Kinoshita, son of Kaori Kikuchi and Shizuka Kinoshita. My one and only nephew. Who is currently unsuccessfully reading his history textbook.

Sozen had wanted a cat. Too bad, he gets a younger sibling.

See, see the inequality within the system?

"You're going to be a big brother! How does that feel? Are you excited?" The waiting room medic gushes with exuberant enthusiasm, more than Sozen who sits in the not comfortable yet not uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. In her hand, with the red-gold nails that have become a commonplace sight on the women of Konoha recently, she grips her list of patients.

Let's go on a tangent here. Red has always been associated with the court of Fire, long before we ever had independence. Yet, why red now? She probably doesn't know who manufactures her nail polish, but it used to be mostly sourced from Water. Coincidentally during the Third Shinobi War, bare or nude polish was in vogue. She probably doesn't care. Now a company in southern Fire makes it, but when the daimyo's daughter chose to paint her nails red and gold for cherry blossom viewing, it spread like wildfire.

And now we have red nails. Red lacquered claws that grip the clipboard while the other set taps the pen listlessly against brown cardboard. Her foot taps along with her; it would get her killed on a mission like that. That and the jewelry; pretty pink stone set into gleaming silver. It loops around her neck and dips into the beginning of cleavage. The pendant would be easy to grasp and then, just a loop, a twist, and a push of wind chakra. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Silver is ridiculously chakra conductive for a non-chakra metal too, the purer the better. There was a ninja from Mist who had done that once, or tried to do that to me. I picked the trick up from him, after I had stabbed him from behind, and nearly lost all the fingers on my right hand trying to replicate it in the downtime I had after that mission.

"Do you want to see them?" She asks, and he hesitates, eyes going wide, unsure. He holds the arms of the chair in a death grip as he tries to reason out what he should say.

Too bad I'm making the decision for him. I pry his fingers from the poor chair, one by one, and by now, he knows not to fight me. Holding securely onto his hand, I give the medic my best smile. It looks real: eyes crinkled, lips pulled up and back. Aren't I harmless?

"Lead on," One quick glance down to her nametag, "Aida-san."

She smiles back and takes us down a maze of hallways until we're in what seems to be the right room.

The funny thing is, if you asked me about my family, I would look you in the eyes, smile with crinkles at the corners, and tell you I love them. Which family, doesn't really matter. I'm lying. It's a bad habit but I'm so far deep into it I can't stop now.

Maybe Sozen's lying everytime he says "I love you kaa-san" to Kaori except his earnest little eyes and tone makes me doubt that. Maybe Kaori and Kasumi are lying everytime they tell me that, but they show none of the tells they usually do. The grandfather, my deceased grandfather in this life, Masahiro, had never told me he loved me. Sloppy footwork, shoddy swordsmanship, lazy attitude, yes. But love, he never spoke a word about love which is why he's my favourite. He didn't lie.

For a family of ninja, that's a fault but Masahiro Kikuchi took more after our distant samurai forefathers I think. He was a veteran of two wars, old enough to see the village founded and fight in the first, then the second. Old enough to bury his sons, his daughter, his grandchildren.

A miserable old man that hated everyone else because he grew to fear love.

Looking at the eyes of the newly born Yasuko Kinoshita, I wonder if he would have finally melted a tiny bit in that empty cold space within his chest. Held the baby, smiled, cried even. And as her glossy grey eyes stare into mine, I think I know the truth.

He wouldn't have.

(I don't know either).


	3. Chapter 3

It is with a spring in my step that I leave Konoha Hospital on the 29th of March, with my multi-coloured forms grasped in hand. My uplifted spirits were in accord with the weather today: uncharacteristic light mist, with the barest hint of a chill in the air, a perfect spring day in Konoha. Rain has yet to set foot upon the streets, the puddles and mud are thankfully absent. Down long streets and through the front door, twisting through the narrow corridors, until I stop by the entrance to the chunin bullpen.

The pile of papers are set with a meaty thud on Nanami's desk. Violet eyes look up from her own pile, face almost pleasant until she recognizes which motherfucker it is.

"Morning," I tell her, "Got some things for you."

A scowl tugs the corners of her mouth down, nose almost scrunched, and brows set in a knot of consternation.

"What is _this_?" She questions, not even picking up or reading the top sheet.

"My bill of good health, all signed and cleared by the dutiful staff of Konoha Hospital." I tell her with my smarmiest grin, oil slick with just the barest taste of something sour at its heel.

"You also need-"

"Yes, form 614-97 and its derivatives, here." I break apart the piles at the midpoint where a friendly slip of red indicates, to show her.

She glances down and stills, furiously running through the stack of papers before her. When she is done, she turns around to face me, and she is smiling.

_She's smiling?_

"I see you have everything filled out Kikuchi-san," her voice saccharine as those words leave carmine-red lips, "How courteous of you. However, according to regulations, I will need you to finish and submit all documents you are currently working with before the end of the work week. See you on Friday!"

With a swish of her sleek brown hair, she turns away with a smirk, mirth evident in her eyes.

Holy fuck, fuck, _fuck that little bitch_.

What the-

-what the flipping fuck, was she pulling that out of her ass? No, I can't even fight her because there's no time to sort through the fucking rule books that are indexed by who-knows-what. I have a fucking mountain of papers to complete in 52 hours by Friday at 17:30, the last submission date before the office closes and all other non-essential forms are processed at 5:30. _Shit!_

I can do this. All those years of procrastination through high school and university would see me through this successfully. Fuck, fuck_, fuckity fuck fuck_. Look at Kikuchi Jin go, o'er hills of paper, not snow.

A note catches my eye.

_Pick up Sozen._ Wait. What time was this?

Oh hell.

I can do the paperwork right after. The office is technically kept open at all hours, but with only a graveyard shift after nine. They'll still let me in so it should be all good.

It's a rapid dash to the nearest window and I'm out, hopping frantically across rooftops that I was forbidden to hop across before now, to that horrible, awful building known as the Academy. An inoffensive building in the centre of Konoha, rebuilt after the huge orange chakra construct decided to go on rampage through Konoha, but terrible for what it represented: children.

The true terrors, the real monsters, lurking around us at all times. Little dirty snot-lickers that never washed, never cleaned their hands properly, tracked dirt and disease all over wherever they went. Trust me, I've been a child twice, neither of which was a pleasant experience. Children are the demons.

And of course, the children are already out, spilling onto the roads and the lush green lawn. Parental supervision accompanies them, some closer than others. With all this is the noise, the screaming of the children playing on the playground, the nagging of the parents, and the noise of the nearby pedestrian traffic around us all.

What I wouldn't give for some noise bylaws.

I get to push upstream against the current, as the bodies walk past me and I wade further into the deep unknown.

_Whoosh!_ Something narrowly misses me-

-oh, it's just some little shit off their leash. Holy fuck, that was close, fuck. The little flare of chakra along my elbow shouldn't alarm anyone, hardly enough to trigger another sensor's senses, but I had almost summoned my wakizashi.

He runs off. Good, good. Neither of us have to say anything.

Heart beating in a rapid little polonaise number of its own, I walk further into the lion's den. Strange adornments hang from the walls. War trophies? Sick, sick monuments of the little monsters' deeds to warn intruders of? They shine in bright colour with disgusting slogans like 'Upwards Everyday!' and 'Working Hard for the Future!'. A sign commemorates these awful displays as the students' own entries to the contest held by the Department of "Public Communication and Information".

When I had brainstormed that little idea, my goal was to skive off work and potentially have some decent slogans. Of course the project proposal wasn't written like that. It was to "inspire Konoha's youth" or some rubbish like that, about how kids know what kids like and us adults can't compare. This was as fucking hip and cool as Maito Guy. Great, these kids compete with some of my colleagues, for their talent.

Well, at least they didn't suggest 'Drunk Off the Fumes of Studying'. I'm pretty sure the reason they agreed to the contest idea was because of that suggestion. Even with laissez-faire attitudes towards kids buying and drinking alcohol (as long as they _looked_ somewhat old enough), even the government didn't want to encourage Academy kids drinking. Their kunai throwing was dangerous enough as was; if they did, they'd have to give the instructors hazard pay. God forbid the bureaucrats get their raises frozen for a quarter.

_The horror._

In the end, I find the room at the end of the hallway. The door is open and I am free to walk in.

The unfamiliar instructor stands there with a frown that immediately becomes a smile once he sees me. Despite being taller than me, he seems glad to not be alone in the presence of an eight-year old boy. It's rather odd when a rugged man with a scar that stretches from his clavicle to his jaw has such an uncertain expression on his face.

What happened to the female instructor for Sozen's class? She was a real battle axe in a tiny frame.

"Kinoshita-san, it's nice to meet you." He greets. His voice is in the formally polite tone that sounds almost strained. Something's up.

"I am Ito Asahi, Sozen's instructor while Tanaka-sensei is on maternity leave."

Or not.

"He's my uncle." Sozen says. "It's 'Kikuchi Jin'; he's on the sign-out forms."

And then, he turns to face me.

"You're late." My nephew accuses me.

I am sorry to say Kaori, but your son will have to improve his taijutsu, because with this level of subtlety, he is only suited for the field. Toiling like a grunt in the world of frontal assault teams.

The riot of multi-coloured forms bursting out of the sorry-looking binder could rival my desk right now. Sozen's teacher, Ito-sensei I suppose, rifles through it frantically, hunting down Sozen's entry.

"Oh! Here it is!" He squints at the long list of characters that look like some monochrome mosaic and nods. Then, a sudden change in tone occurs.

"I need to talk to you about what happened today." He says soberly. "Kinoshita-san had an accident with one of his classmates during taijutsu training. Luckily no one was seriously injured, but that classmate bruised their sternum and had to go to the hospital. We need for his parents or guardians to sign this form."

"There's a form for that?" We didn't have this when I was stuck in the old Academy, may it rest in peace. "It's not like he was caught fighting outside the ring."

Ito shoots me a look. I pretend not to catch it.

"His classmate was sent to the hospital to make sure it wasn't broken." He says slowly, voice lower than before.

Sozen noticeably looks down at his sandals. Brat.

What happened to no "really serious injuries"? The, if it isn't actually fractured or broken, it doesn't matter? The horrible taijutsu spars of my childhood where getting beat up by the Hyuga in the class was just an uncomfortable experience we had to go through? Is chakra enhancing not allowed either?

However, in the true spirit of the Will of Fire, I will gladly make sacrifices for my fellow shinobi of Konoha. I will be the better man here.

"Alright, I will make sure it reaches his mother." I tell him. His shoulders loosen in relief.

"Thank you Kikuchi-san, have a good day."

"You too, good-bye." I start walking forwards, form in hand. The tell-tale sound of sandals on a wooden surface means Sozen is not far behind me.

Although he's not a particularly loud kid, he's still very quiet today. I would bet 500 ryo that he got the dressing down of his life earlier before I arrived. Or may a guilt trip, yeah, guilt trip seems likelier.

"So, how was your day?" I ask.

He decides to do a dying animal impression. It sounds a lot like "fine" but who really knows? Could be 'I decided to run away and join the circus' for all I know.

"Okay. Do you want to talk about that?"

This time, he decides to speak clearly.

"No."

Alright, alright. A little preemptive sulking before the teenage years even begin. Starting your chuunibyou phase early it seems.

We walk in silence after that, my attempts to engage in polite small talk akin to pulling teeth.

Sozen, what a funny name, dumping it upon an eight year old who can't even understand the history behind it, the long ledgers of even longer-dead ancestors who probably don't even care. It may be a good name for stuffy samurai, but not for some brat who still doesn't even use live steel. Of course, it hadn't been Kaori's choice, or Shizuka's. It had been the old man's.

Sozen glares mulishly at his feet, chubby hands not grasped around my own like usual but clenched at his sides.

I hated my years of primary schooling too. Trapped with knees against the frames of the plastic chairs and desks, waiting for the faithful cry of the school bell to release me from the confines of that institution. Schools are, in my opinion, a great way for children to experience the realities of this world: that power corrupts more than anything else, that people don't practice what they preach, and the petty bureaucrats you'll meet will make you lose sleep.

"Do you want dango?" I ask. We usually get dango when I have to pick him up.

He shakes his head with his lips drawn tight across his face in a frown. His feet drag small clouds of dust behind him. Kaori won't be pleased with his dusty sandals. Or the note from his teacher, Kaori won't be pleased with a lot of things today it seems.

"Alright," I tell him as we stop at the imagawayaki stall, "One matcha imagawayaki for me please. Sozen, what do you want?"

His eyes glance over the glossy laminated sign, mouth pursed still in displeasure.

"Red bean."

Ah azuki beans, my old nemesis. Even in this life, I cannot escape your presence. Sozen's dastardly ways have been revealed: no longer is he my favourite of Kaori's children. After such a betrayal, the newly born Sui is now my favourite.

"And an azuki one for him."

The elderly woman behind the counter smiles, revealing a mouthful of empty sockets where there should be teeth. Her twitching hands circle above the ryo on the counter and attempt a descent twice before they successfully grasp it. They shake as they brush it back down into an unseen drawer. I guess she likes the work. Or, more realistically, she has no other way for providing herself. Social security is a construct that only exists for ninja.

"Yours?" She asks with a knowing smile. It's a worse threat than incoming kunai and I can only hope my visible flinch isn't obvious.

"My nephew."

I don't look that old do I? Starting a family at my age is on the younger side but given the hazards of the profession, understandable. Except Sozen was born when I was nine. Still, I never want children. I've never been particularly good with women and the luggage they bring with them. I'll freely admit, I'm the one who fucked up most of my long term relationships. Not that it matters now.

"Ah, is he in the Academy? Shinji, wasn't it Nanako's daughter that also goes to the Academy?"

"Sounds like it." The old man's thin voice shouts, sound muffled from the inside of the stall.

"Nanako's girl, what's her name? Shinji, what did Nanako call her daughter? Harumi? Haruki? Haru-"

"-Haruna." He strains, wheezing, the sound of clattering metal emerging outside.

"Yes, Haruna! Your nephew, he's six?"

"Eight."

"Mhm, my, how is the Academy? Do you like it."

Sozen keeps his eyes trained on the dust staining his sandals. Thankfully, he has the discretion not to say anything aloud about what he really thinks.

"It's fine." He says, voice smaller than usual.

"Shy huh?" The proprietress remarks with a chuckle. "Here you go, one matcha and one azuki! Enjoy!"

I take the bag and hand him one of the still hot, paper wrapped imagawayaki.

"Thank you, have a nice day."

"Come back anytime, young man!" She yells as we walk away.

"You scared him off!" The old man in the back growls, loud enough even for us to hear.

"Hush!"

The imagawayaki doesn't help make conversation, but it does give us an excuse to not say anything. The Kinoshita household isn't too far from the Academy: around two-thirds of a kilometre, but they've changed the regulations for drop-off compared to when I was in there. Now, adults have to come and pick them up. Can't just let them run down the streets, waiting for natural selection via cart to take them out. This is probably why property prices are rising: overpopulation due to kids no longer _not_ making it to adulthood.

Or because of the limited space in a walled village with a growing population. No, definitely the lack of wars and no more early graduation introduced by the Yondaime, scourge of the good ramen stall. It must be that.

At the door, I reach to knock, but the door suddenly swings open.

"Sozen, Jin!" Kaori says with a smile despite the bruise-like bags under her grey eyes. Sozen rushes in, scrambling for the homestretch, no doubt to escape being in the presence of his mother when I deliver the bad news. That's not going to help.

"Thank you for picking him up! Why don't you stay for dinner? I'm making O-zōni and gozaemon sushi."

"It's alright, nee-san. I don't want to impose." I hand her the form.

She frowns, and the resemblance to our mother only increases. It's odd, how she's starting to develop the same wrinkles in the same locations, even at twenty-six, the middle-child out of the three of us. Growing up again with her, nine years my senior, she and Kasumi had done a good portion of the raising that grandparents weren't suited for.

"I'll talk to Sozen later." She says with a sigh after reading it.

Her eyes sharpen on me though, and it's likely another incoming barrage.

"I already started preparing and it's too much for just us." She counters, "It's just dinner Jin. _Please_."

Family dinners had never been a happy occasion in either of my lives growing up. I think my aversion to them is only to be expected.

Our grandfather only was interested in our ability as shinobi, our grandmother overwhelmed with the amount of grandchildren she had to help watch over as our grandmother's children were summoned away to the war. The woman I called "okaa-san" was a fleeting figure, always dragged to one warfront or another before she became one of those corpses there. Our sire, dead, before I was born. Some type of hush-hush mission that didn't leave a body, only one of those letters of grief that I now occasionally write, encased that special, tell-tale envelope.

It was lucky then I guess that I came "pre-raised".

O-zōni and gozaemon sushi, no doubt to bribe me to stay for dinner. It should work, but I have a stack of papers to finish in my office.

"I can't, I need to finish my paperwork before I leave for my mission." I tell her.

Her frown deepens.

"Aren't you supposed to be on desk duty for another two weeks? Why are you leaving so soon again? How long are you leaving for?"

"Another two weeks was just a longer estimate in case of complications, nee-san. It's just a standard courier mission. It'll only be around a month."

"Who are you trying to trick? A month? Tokubetsu-jonin missions don't suddenly magically become longer than the usual week or two for courier duty!"

She would know. Kaori's squad in her genin days had found itself with the inglorious duty of supplying the north-eastern front by the land of the Hotsprings and Rice while running frantically from Kumo-nin. It was the same front that would see her combat days over after a particularly nasty raiton left the nerves on her right left fried and at best, able to walk with a slight limp. She retired a while later as she wasn't suited to any of the desk positions and Shizuka's income was enough to support the two of them.

I shrug. "It's a bit longer than usual, just there's more than one stop. You know how it is."

I don't mention the rendezvous with the Intel squad I'm supposed to meet up with. Or the actual frame job we're supposed to commit. That's the "lose my head" type of confidentiality that I don't feel like toeing the line with. The soul-sucking nature of desk duty may call, but I cannot answer, as the demand for those on the active-duty roster is still at a high even after four years.

Kaori knows this too. Her husband, Shizuka, is hardly ever home. He was only present for Sui's birth because of luck. Only a week later and he's on another mission, escorting merchants from what I hear.

Mouth drawn in a bitter line, she looks at me, still. She doesn't immediately speak, and her voice dramatically drops in volume once she does.

"Make sure you eat dinner. Be safe Jin, don't take any risks."

"Goodbye nee-san."

The door closes shut with only the slightest creak of its joints.

**A/n: this isn't abandoned. Just continuously procrastinated on until I procrastinated for something else by writing this.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes:**

**Apologies for not updating sooner. I have nothing. I just write slowly. And procrastinate. Thanks to everyone who commented months ago, really helped me update slightly faster, not that it shows.**

**Not particularly satisfied with this, as I had originally outlined this to include more events, but was tired of writing this and wanted to just post something already.**

Konoha is already within spring's embrace when I leave. Just me, in the golden dawn light, the scent of the early blooms lingering behind.

The sway of windswept branches and rustling leaves accompanies me on my journey north. Scattered fans of green needles dominate the landscape, as the slopes become steeper, and every step is some direction upwards. I crave the softness of a bed; the rough bark, the damp press of the ground, all these unpleasant parts of nature that couldn't compare to the joys of sleeping indoors.

I don't dream; of all the hallowed mercies bestowed upon me. Sleep is a brief blink into darkness, then back into awareness, re-inserted into the cadence of my steps. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, left, right, left.

Those blue-washed mountains in the distance draw closer. Less and less blue, less and less distant. Dread grips its way around my stomach, constricting its hand up the tract of my esophagus, pressing, squeezing, up, up, down, down.

What am I afraid of?

_April is the cruelest month..._ How did it go again? Waiting? Were there lilacs? Or was it lavenders? Does it matter, it isn't the season for either. Just the occasional clumps of hardy, flowering weeds.

Lost in thought, not paying attention to my surroundings, I'm certainly just waiting to be ambushed. The scenery is what poets will describe in words that can simply be summed up as "beautiful". It still is just scenery.

I had planned my path to avoid the main roads: faster, less people, and the canopy helped deflect some of the rain.

Running at high speeds always was discomforting with rain splashing into your eyes. The sound of the world rushing past your ears, surroundings only a blur, motion carrying you ahead. Empty of conversation, of words, of meaning. It's a constant noise that drowns out the rest of the world at times, leaving me to my thoughts; not the same, but close, on the edge of it that I can tell myself I don't miss it.

I hadn't lied when I said it was a courier run, not exactly.

Here in the northern borders of Fire, spring had not yet fully arrived, only starting to break out of its slumber beneath the earth. Small green buds dot the young branches of the trees and the peaks of grass start to peer out of the melting snow. In the distance are the flickering lights of civilization: Shimizu-cho. A sleepy tourist town nestled in the start of the mountain range that crawls further north, past Hot Springs, past Frost, into Lightning.

Even in the middle of war, the town had not been touched, according to Kaori and Kasumi. Conflict between the hidden villages was not something the nobles wanted to openly acknowledge even if it was us on their behalf, starting their fires and demolishing their roofs. I once set a noble's back courtyard on fire and he pretended everything was alright at first to save face. It was pretty fun, until the _side_ side chick decided to show up and pick a fight with his official side chick, and then his wife got involved too, and things got too wild even for me.

Good times.

As I close in, I can see the picturesque traditional tile roofs and cozy chimney stacks they had recounted. The sun has already almost completely set beneath the horizon and I navigate mostly by the light of the cylindrical paper lanterns, merging into the crowd of tourists here for the hot springs and scenery.

Under the gaze of the red and yellow lanterns it is loud, loud enough to drown out the rustle of the forest, the howl of the mountain winds. Drunken tourists navigate themselves poorly, peering at sights, marvelling at the traditional architecture that is the other attraction here, second to the hot springs. Under the threadbare henge I hastily threw over myself, I was simply a mousy man of indeterminate means, bundled up in a navy coat. I'd already passed by eight other men wearing similar coats.

Street vendors and their carts dominate what space is left over on these winding cobblestone streets. There's plenty of the usual fare: roasted chestnuts, grilled corn, baked sweet potatoes, takoyaki, squid skewers.

I don't have a watch and there's no way to tell the time here other than the general position of the sun. I should be on schedule right now which _is_ a good excuse to eat something that isn't a ration bar.

"One please." I tell the curry bun seller hawking her wares, placing the folded ryo into her hands. It's exact, no change needed. She looks at me with a shrewd gaze but doesn't choose to share whatever comments she may have with the class. Smart woman.

I'm a contactless man, or I was a contactless woman, but the joys of tapping and no pin pads are far, far away in the distant future as credit cards aren't even a thing yet here. The distant, change-less future.

She gives me the greasy paper bag, decorated by small translucent oil circles, with the golden, deep-fried pastry of joy. Only a cursory smile is given before we exchange the usual brief platitudes and she moves on to the next customer.

Another great thing about being a ninja they don't tell you about is how fast you get at eating food. It's a hard-earned skill only obtainable after constant interruptions to your meals such as travel, running for your life, battle, and unexpected ambushes. The heavily spiced meat filling is pleasantly warm on my tongue, weaker than what I prefer, but enough to ward off some of the cold.

However, a couple bites in and I have a mouthful of ashes. The spice blend is strong and cloying, the grease cloying as it travels down my throat. I can't escape the overpowering taste of garlic. Each bite is another fly in the ointment. Soon, all I have is a mountain of dead little fly corpses, piled within an empty ointment jar.

It doesn't matter.

I eat every last bite.

I follow the cobblestone paths winding further into town, until I am once again, on the outskirts. Up, up, and up, the path goes.

The lay of the road is long and twisting, but still achieves the task of piercing through the town, spiraling uphill to the small inn with the weather-worn sign of entwined ginkyo leaves, cradled by the mountain.

A beautiful view.

A solitary one, accessible by walking or a very sure-footed donkey. The front desk is manned by a single middle aged woman who smiles at me with deep bruise-like circles underneath somewhat glazed eyes. She was a beautiful woman: long blonde hair framing a traditional oval face, straight-barely-hooked nose, almond eyes. A colouring prevalent here in the northern borders of Fire country, and would continue to reappear as you ventured further north into Hot Springs, Frost, and eventually Lightning.

"Good evening," She says.

"Good evening."

Up close, I can see the fine imprints of age, delicate lines that fan out from the edges of her eyes and mouth, lightly covered by make-up but still there if you chose to see the signs.

"A party of one? Dinner is already being served, but we can still provide food if needed, I'll just tell the kitchen to make one more meal."

Her words are slurred by Konoha measures, the beginning of the travesty of a dialect that only worsens as it goes further north, depending on who you ask. It's rather pleasant, almost reminiscent of the syrup-like drawl of the American south when there had been an America, only marred by the nasal tone to it. Every harsh sound softened by a rounding of the mouth despised by those of particular diction.

"Just a party of one please with dinner, thank you."

"For how long shall you be staying with us sir?"

"One night please."

"For one night it will be 790 ryo for a single room."

Ah, the joys of the authentic mountain tourist experience. Clean countryside air, fresh mountain winds, and all the price gouging you can meet. If the funds hadn't already been pre-arranged, I doubt I would've splurged. They certainly aren't holding back on the price here.

I fish out the bills from the wallet I use on outings like these. Nice leather, a little worn, but well-kept. Nondescript, bought in Earth, no discernible ties to class.

"If you don't mind sir, please write your name into our guestbook here." She taps a neatly manicured finger onto the space between the red vertical lines on the page, awaiting for the name I've been given.

Ryuzaki Kanjiro signs it with ease. The characters are written with that carelessness that familiarity begets, but still recognizable.

I almost ask what's for dinner, but it doesn't really matter. I'll probably eat anything. Even natto.

What can I say? I'm a growing boy. That kare-pan barely scratched the surface of the bottomless void of a still vertically expanding seventeen year old. No matter how hard it tries, my gut can't horizontally expand fast enough. The hunger still gnaws at the lining of my stomach, screaming as it burrows within the marrow of my bones, always demanding more.

"Room 208 is just up the stairs to the right. Your meal will be delivered to your room in about fifteen minutes. Thank you for coming to the Ginkyo Inn and we hope you enjoy your stay here."

Under the warm lighting, everything takes on a sepia tone: the gleaming burnished wood railing, the pine flooring, and the paper panels of the sliding doors. I have to remind myself to make my footsteps loud and cumbersome on such nice floors.

Drawing the room open with the steady slide of the divider, it reveals a small room: square, a low table, tatami mats hiding the floorboards, drawers that presumably hold a futon and sheets. Barely enough space at the back for a single futon, and a small door that likely hid the washroom.

I settle into the room the careless way tourists do, slipping off their travel shoes and tossing their belongings, settling down on the floor with exhaustion. Using the guise of a long-term thinker I groan and moan my way to setting up the futon in the corner, away from the table, even going so far to fluff up my pillow.

It may not be until morning that I will receive an acknowledgement of my presence here, so I have the evening to leisure away in civilian bliss.

A knock at my door interrupts my leisurely post-travel celebration.

In haste to answer, I almost trip over the table. The sliding screen rattles as it slides open to reveal a girl dressed in a plain, mended navy kimono. Her sleeves are a shade too purple to match the rest of the body, with clear stitching showing the wear, tear, and repair of the garment. Small splotches of sauce or oil are visible as well.

There is something familiar to her. Her face is ordinary: round with the suppleness of youth, dark eyes that shade of brown common as mud, in an almond shape, but neither wide or tapering, mouth small, dark brows faint and unshaped, with stray hairs unplucked. Heavy bangs dominate most of it and the rest is simply best described by how her clothes wear her and not the other way around.

"Good evening sir. Your dinner tonight is chawanmushi, vegetable tempura, grilled fish, vegetable soup, and grilled tofu." She enters and places the heavy tray on my table with ease that belies her skinny limbs. The food is arranged into small bowls and dishes, the soup the usual fare: hearty winter root vegetables which store well, napa cabbage, mushrooms dried then re-hydrated.

She plays the role very well. If it is a henge like what I suspect, it is well-made: pores, freckles, peach fuzz, discolourations, scars, all wonderfully done. We are just two actors in a play, in front of an invisible audience, locked into our roles so that we don't ruin the suspension of disbelief for them.

"I hope you enjoy sir." She says, "If there is anything you need, let us know. I will come back in an hour for the tray sir."

She bows and leaves.

Sometimes being too nondescript is a give-away in and of itself.

It smells great. My stomach rumbles once again, but first, I have matters to settle. I blaze through my scan of the room, checking for hiding spots and peepholes, finding none, but that may just be my shoddy searching skills.

A paper is visibly pinned under my bowl of rice. Folded in half, the dark ink of a handwritten character peeks out.

I'll leave it for later. It can wait. It probably can't.

I open it, bending it straight. Two vertical rows of characters, seven kanji each, all written with a pen, not by brush. There's a certain flair to the flicks and swishes of the tails, a trailing hand to the dots, softness where I vear sharply, loops that others may simply terminate.

It reads:

_The east wind sighs, the fine rains come:_

_Beyond the pool of water-lilies, the noise of faint thunder._

Embedded between the two faces of the yellow paper was a simple landscape painted on thick, textured paper, almost like cardstock. In the style of sumi-e it depicts the local mountains presumably from the inn.

Contact has been made it seems.

Ah, this again. I think some Yamanaka code-geek out there in their musty little sun-deprived office is burdened with the delusion of intellectualism. Nothing else can explain the obsession with old, archaic poetry. At this point I could almost consider myself somewhat educated. Terrifying.

Now I can recite old poetry like a parrot whipped out for a party-trick. Certainly something to break the ice with, if I ever did go out, socialize, make friends.

Despite the curry bun, I eat the tray of food with ease, my stomach ever-expanding. After all, I _am_ a teenage boy.

Scrounging in my bag I search for my pen. The pen, a shitty one, bleeds out onto my palm the bruise-blue ink that shows it is the wrong pen. I try again until my palm is blue, black, and red, until the "invisible" ink pen is in my hands. Using this dearly sought-out utensil, I scribble out the corresponding response in my worst kanji.

_Separated under the weight of ten thousand miles by Mt. Bu. _

Then, separated by some lines further, my own message:

_The colours of the flowers_

_Lie shrouded in the mists_

Seriously. Whoever decides on these needs to discover that time has passed on to a new millenia. The Empire of Grass has long fallen, the warlords of Fire deposed, and we are long united under one throne, one daimyo. For better or for worse.

As always, for better, or for worse, which I am allowed to say in the tinny privacy of my own little head.

And under the rice bowl it goes. Folded up without any regard to the nice handwriting of the original sender, with my slightly altered chicken scratch marring it beyond repair.

* * *

_It is quiet. At night the river is a shimmering obsidian serpent reflecting the distant city lights. Cold, I-_

There are dead things here where the soil washes away. Dead things in a space where the sea meets the harbour bay. The ocean roars, the cold winds screech, and in the middle, there is no peace. No trees grow, for sand is not enough. No trees, only gulls, and the occasional grass tufts.

-_Four days before Christmas. I already signed the cards, wrapped the presents, mailed them off. There's no one around, not now-_

Grey skies, grey-blue water, grey sand. The grey scattered feathers of the bisected seagull corpse. His eyes are grey: rusted steel, wide open, long dark lashes fanned out against milky-pale skin.

_-her eyes were brown. Long-lashed, wide almond brown. Warm, warm brown. The comfort of hot coffee, the grasp of soft palm and fingers interlaced with your own, the burn of water against your eyes as you-_

The gulls have already started fighting over the body.

* * *

It's better not to remember my dreams. It's better not to dream.

I leave the quiet town of Shimizu before breakfast. All for the better, to avoid running into actual tourists, after all, continuity is a bitch. It's further north that is my destination. And I am alone. Or so I think, at least, for most of it.

It's a lot of time to my thoughts. Quite hollow here. Empty.

I run. I sleep. I hide. I try not to think. Thinking is overrated. Only losers and nerds think. Don't become a desk-rider like them, go die in combat for glorious leader like the rest of us.

Tree, tree, rock, tree. The occasional wild life. Tree.

Then, I emerge from the wilds, two days later.

I am quite confident I reek. The unwashed masses however don't seem to care too much. We commonfolk walk up, goods perched on shoulder, eyes downcast, up before the rise of dawn. The guards at the gates watch us, occasionally checking papers. There's a pattern to it: you must look pathetic enough, but not too pathetic. Poor enough to come selling your cabbages with your cabbage cart, but not poor enough to come begging with an empty cap. Dirt farmers yes, panhandlers no.

I might as well be the king of dirt these days. Dredged from the loamy deep, with my gravel crown atop my silty clay throne, I drudge forward with the rest of the hivemind. My shoulder pole is standard bamboo and only slightly less soiled than me.

One burden less, one meet-up more: conferences are such a drag.

The guard takes one look at me, an old lady of hard to discern age, features tan and worn from an honest life of rough work and thankless toil, then decides to set his bleary gaze upon a more aesthetically pleasing member of the working poor. Bless his heart.

For a lowly provincial town like this, they don't hire ninja or samurai. Henge is a godsend.

And so I go, taking my cabbages with me. Fine cabbages, the best cabbages, sold at a reasonable price. Fresh from the farm. No fresher cabbages out there than my cabbages.

"Cabbages, cabbages! Eight ryo a kan!" Someone yells. Eight ryo a kan? What in tarnation-are they trying to put me out of business?

I'm an honest cabbage farmer trying to peddle his, er, her wares. Feed my family. Think of the children! My non-existent struggling children, grubbing around in the seediness of rural poverty!

The rough cobble road leads deeper into town, and here's my first costume change. Ducking into cover, all I have to do is re-seal the pole and my lovely, delicate cabbages, then re-apply a different henge. Easy, peezy, lemon squeezy.

I wander around, hoping to blend in. Watching the passage of the sun above, I have wasted a good portion of the day walking around this town, and I finally decide to check-in by afternoon.

This time, it's a more modern inn on the borders of the red light district. Rickety, that's the word for it, rickety. Wooden with a shabby veneer that doesn't inspire any faith for its security or cleanliness. A whole three storeys, three unsteady looking storeys. If I die in here, would this count as a workplace accident?

The proprietress gives me a lazy glance from the counter. She doesn't look impressed. I wouldn't be either. I get the feeling I'm interrupting her sudoku here. One uncomfortable check-in later and I have the key, climbing up the cramped stairway onto the third floor.

I place my fist against the grain of the door, about to knock, before stopping myself. Right, the pattern changed this February. Fucking hell, what was it supposed to be now?

Stepping away from the door for now, I walk over to the side to think. Uh, it can't be the old one, that's for sure? Did they revert back to the one before that one? With the modifier at the end? Or was it beginning, there was that modifier I'm sure. Pretty sure. Would bet 20 ryo on it.

"Are you alright?"

The woman is not particularly short or tall. Dark hair, dark eyes, slightly pale but not out of the ordinary. Features almost familiar, somehow. Dressed like a traveller in an old, patched coat; one who can't afford better accommodations and is just making do. Something about the shape of the eyes...

"Ah," I give the room another glance. "Sorry, I just realized I forgot something but can't quite recall what it was."

There was someone inside. Stretching my shitty abilities to limit, I could fail the faint hum of a human within, but it wasn't strong. Civilian at first glance. Probably them holding it in.

Feigning innocence, I use the other greeting, the one I was supposed to use later. Ah well, running out of options now.

"The roads were horrible. Muddy, so much mud. Got trapped behind someone's water buffalo too, dropped dead on the road and the owner wouldn't let us pass or move his cart. All for a cart of cabbages."

A flicker of a frown, then it smooths itself out. Her eyes dart around the empty corridor, before holding her hands out in front of her chest to sign in Konoha Standard.

_Why outside now?_

"Oh, how unfortunate." She says for the peanut gallery.

Sheepishly, I sign back.

_Code change February. Forget code enter. _

She looks uncertain.

_Registration number?_

I sign it back to her slowly, making sure she can see each number.

She sighs. Stepping up to the door, she knocks what likely is the correct passcode and the door shifts just the slightest fraction, to signify it is open. Giving me a look, I follow her in.

It's not a large room. There's barely any furniture, just a table. Four people could squeeze onto the floor in sleeping bags if necessary. A washroom in the corner with the paint peeling off the door.

Two people are already waiting inside. A man and a woman. Bland, forgettable, dressed in clothing that you could see on the street outside. Hands casually placed at their sides, near what is likely their weapon pouch.

They both look at me much warily compared to the woman beside me. Not unsurprising since they've probably heard the exchange outside. Ah, introductions again it seems.

Can't fuck this up again.

**End notes:**

"The east wind sighs, the fine rains come:

Beyond the pool of water-lilies, the noise of faint thunder." Is from Graham's translation of Li Shangyi.

"Separated under the weight of ten thousand miles by Mt. Bu." Is my translation of the last line of the poem preceding that one.

"The colours of the flowers Lie shrouded in the mists" is from www. wakapoetry . / kks-ii-91 /


End file.
